394 THE EXTERIOR OF THE HORSE. 



As to the defect in length, would not the same inconveniences exist 

 as if the horse were too tall ? Over and above the fact that the animal 

 would acqviire a tendency to forge and interfere, his gait would be hard, 

 unsightly, and high, for the spinal column, although more solid, would 

 be shorter and less supple. 



Such are the results to which extremes lead ! Let us seek for the 

 just mean by inspiring ourselves with beautiful nature. Beginning 

 with the idea that in order to produce speed long members are neces- 

 sary, and that these, to be properly developed, should act upon a long 

 body, many persons imagine that fast horses, trotters or others, are 

 longer than they are high, and they give to the length a quarter of a 

 head, or even a third, more than to the height. What reply will they 

 give us when we tell them that they have made a suggestion in direct 

 opposition to the reality ? 



M. Duhousset ' says that " out of fifty African horses, twenty-six 

 were shorter than they were high ; in fourteen the height and the 

 length were equal ; and in ten the excess was in length." Farther on, 

 the same author records his observations on horses of fine breeding: : 

 Out of forty runners examined, there were twenty-eight in which the 

 height was equal to the length, nine in which it was more considerable, 

 finally, three in which it was less (Dick, Monarque, and Ralph). 



It would be fastidious to insist further upon this point. Our 

 measurements upon the handsomest running-horses, steeple-chasers, 

 Orloif trotters, Anglo-Norman and Arabian, Barb, Andalusian, some 

 Hungarian, and American horses enable us to affirm that the excess in 

 length, scarcely amounting to 1, 2, 4, or 5 centimetres, is the exception, 

 the equality or excess in height permitting variations of the same value 

 being the rule. 



For fast work, Bourgelat was right in considering the equality 

 between height and length as the just mean to be sought. In this 

 respect, again, he was not influenced by purely theoretical views ; he 

 had sought for and had actually seen what he had indicated. 



For slow services this just mean remains, a fortiori, the same. 

 Still, we hasten to affirm that horses of this class are very often longer 

 than tall, very probably because their production has received less 

 care. Hence, sway-backs are common among them. But let those 

 be measured which have won the prizes in expositions and in competi- 

 tions, those which the government or breeding associations recommend 

 for that very reason to the public choice ; we will find that they are 



1 E. Duhousset, Le Cheval, p. 67. 



